


There's no time in the bardo, no time in the in-between

by Kat



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:15:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26230042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat/pseuds/Kat
Summary: Your voice is echoing love, love, love, love, loveI hear it far, far awayAnd I am waiting for youYes, I am waiting for you
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	There's no time in the bardo, no time in the in-between

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics from. "No time for love like now" by Michael Stipe

No time for breezy  
No time for arguments  
No time for love like now

“7 sharp, boss. Time to knock off. Sasha’s got a table at the pub. Martin’s almost packed up.”

Jon looks up from the statement he’s reading … _is he? Can’t quite remember_... to find Tim lounging against the door jamb. “Pardon?”

Tim exhales, his usual long-suffering sigh. “Oh no you don’t. You are _not_ worming your way out of this one.” He pauses for Jon to roll his eyes at the truly horrible pun. Which he does. “Everyone must needs leave this place once a fortnight. Even you.”

“All right,” he says, but as he stands up he’s suffused with a disorienting wash of vertigo. _Wrong, this is wrong. Tim is… Tim is gone… and so is Sasha…_

He blinks and the room revolves once, slowly, rearranging itself into his office but somehow different. Everything feels like it’s off by a couple of inches. It’s not Tim lurking in the doorway now, but Martin. And he’s frowning.

“Are you certain you’re all right, Jon? You look… peaky.”

“I’m fine,” he says, even as the words stick in his mouth. Maybe he is ill? It would explain the odd cloudiness of his vision, the way Martin feels both so close and also so distant.

Martin is still frowning. He crosses his arms over his chest. “Every time you say that disaster follows. What are you not telling me?”

"Disaster does _not_ follow.” The indignation in his own voice settles him slightly.

“It most certainly does.” Not joking, like Tim. Earnest, worried. “Jon, please. Tell me.”

He wants to try, because Martin might understand. Martin might help. But the words don’t come. “I… I’m all right, Martin. Just…”

Martin doesn’t let him finish the sentence. “Should have known you wouldn’t trust me. Peter told me you wouldn’t but I didn’t believe him. How would he know? But he was right.” He turns abruptly, walks away.

Jon wants to call after him, to explain that something is wrong, that _everything_ is wrong, that he trusts Martin even when he trusts no one else, that he needs… but the waves of vertigo lap higher.

There’s no time for dancing  
No time for undecideds  
No time for love like now

“Why do we never do this,” Daisy asks, voice loud over the thump of bass. The sound echoes oddly in Jon’s head. She’s leaning against Basira and she must be more pissed than Jon suspects because that’s not a question any of them would ask were they sober.

“Would you like the list in alphabetical order, or just as it comes to mind?” Basira asks.

Daisy bites Basira’s shoulder. “Shut up and dance with me.” She tugs her away from the table, onto the dance floor. Basira makes a face but Jon knows she’s just attempting to keep up the appearance of annoyance. He blinks, slowly. Stares down at the nearly empty pint on the table in front of him. Is _he_ pissed? It would explain the way the music sounds vaguely muffled, the crowd around him shadowy and indistinct. He rubs his eyes, squints but it doesn’t help.

He drains the last sip from the glass and as he sets it carefully back on table there’s a flash of strobe and he catches sight of Martin from across the room. He’s hovering on the edge of things looking awkward and uncertain in his jumper and khakis. Jon smiles to himself, an unexpected fondness welling in the center of his chest.

Martin catches his eye and weaves his way between dancers. “Hey,” he says, “didn’t expect to see you here.” Even though the music is still throbbing in Jon’s ears, Martin’s voice slices through the noise. Jon Knows, even though he doesn’t want to he can’t help but Know, under Martin’s veneer of vague displeasure a burst of happiness squeezes his heart as it does Jon’s.

“Wasn’t going to come, but…” Jon shrugs. 

“Me neither. Daisy is surprisingly persuasive.”

Jon huffs a laugh. “She is.” They just look at each other for a long moment. Behind Martin the crowd shifts and moves. “I...I’ve missed you,” Jon blurts. He regrets in the second the words leave his mouth.

The connection broken, Martin rubs a hand over his hair, steps away. “Yeah. Well. Um… I forgot something, at the Archives…”

“Martin, I’m sorry,” he says though for what, exactly, he’s not sure. All of it, maybe.

“I… better go.”

“No, yeah. It’s late…” He doesn’t want to agree, doesn’t want Martin to leave, but can’t figure how to make him stay. The world is wavering again, dizziness making thoughts hard to catch. He reaches out, even as Martin moves away.

There's no time for honey  
No time for psalms and thresholds  
Whisper a sweet prayer sigh

“Jon?” Martin’s voice is weary, wary.

Jon turns his head and the surroundings swim into focus. Safe house. Bedroom. Light from a bedside lamp, gold as honey, spills over Martin, making it look as though he’s glowing. “Martin…” He wants to ask why it feels like he’s floating; why his thoughts feel so foggy; why there seems to be nothing at all beyond the circle of light from the lamp.

“How are you feeling?”

How _is_ he feeling? Jon frowns. He’s not sure he feels anything. Not sure he has a body. “Am I… am I really here? Really… real?” He feels ephemeral, about to dissolve into the darkness waiting beyond. Maybe he’s just the Eye, just Beholding and nothing more.

“Of course you’re here. You’re real as I am.” Martin smiles, but Jon isn’t reassured. Martin’s hand presses to his forehead then, and he solidifies at the touch. “I think the paracetamol’s taken the fever down some. How about tea? Might help your throat?”

“No!” He reaches out and this time his hand closes over Martin’s wrist. “Please, stay,” he says, voice not much above a rough whisper and even so it makes him cough.

“All right.” Martin is still smiling as Jon draws him down onto the bed. As their bodies align, Jon feels his edges becoming clear, even as the world beyond the circle of light fades deeperinto darkness. They fit together as puzzle pieces, as lines of poetry. As no one has fit with Jon before and no one will again.

Martin’s hands skim over Jon’s skin and the sensation is almost too intense. He’s being drawn back down, back into a body that burns and aches and shivers. Yet when Martin lifts a hand, he yearns forward again, into the touch that’s like a prayer, like a hymn.

“Martin, whatever happens… whatever comes…” he forces words through dry, cracked lips.  
  
“Shh, Jon, don’t…”

Jon shakes his head slightly, and the pillow is cool on his cheek. “I have to. I have to tell you. You have to know. I lo…” he tries to shake the words free but his thoughts are tangling again, the vertigo is rising, and the tide pulls him out.

Where did this all begin to change  
Lockdown memories can’t sustain  
This glistening, hanging free fall

Silence presses hard on Jon’s ears, on his thoughts. When had the Knowing fallen quiet?Was it when they came in sight of the Panopticon? When they crossed into the Eye’s realm? When he Knew what he had to do? When he knew that he would? Didn’t matter. No need to Know anything anymore.

He should tell Martin, warn him, explain. But he can’t. He doesn’t know how to say, doesn’t have the words… So he takes Martin’s hand as they climb the stairs and he tries to make it clear through the press of flesh to flesh. Tries to say goodbye. Tries to say I love you.Tries to say I’m sorry.

And then it’s all over and the flames are rising and the sparks are swirling up into the dark and the smoke and the glow and Jon knows it’s time, Knows it has to be now, and he steps back once, twice, and his foot goes over the edge and his balance shifts and for a moment it’s like he’s back in the Vast and he’s hanging and then he’s falling, falling...

Martin reaches for him, even as he’s falling and even though he knows Martin can’t catch him, Martin shouldn’t catch him, needs to let him fall, Jon reaches back because maybe one last touch of their fingers, one last brief brush...

I turned away from the glorious light  
I turned my head and cried  
Whatever waiting means in this new place  
I am waiting for you

Oh suddenly he Knows -- knows in all of the permutations of the word. Knows the ocean entire now. And beyond the ocean the light, oh the light. Brighter than the moon. Brighter than the sun. Brighter than Martin’s eyes in the dawn. Light that doesn’t burn, light that soothes, light that heals, light that promises, light that is love. He wants to crawl to that light, wants to walk, run, fly… he wants to open his arms and embrace that light… wants to dissolve in that light.

But he won’t. He won’t. He turns his head away, even as tears slip down his cheeks. Because he will wait, on this shore of the ocean, with the light shining on the other side. He’ll wait until he can feel that hand in his again. Can see those eyes. Can hear that voice.

Your voice is echoing love, love, love, love, love  
I hear it far, far away  
And I am waiting for you  
Yes, I am waiting for you

*flash*

Blue eyes met green, communion passing between them on their breath as they took the final steps to panopticon, to Jonah, to the end and his voice, “I love you, Jon.”

*flash*

Hand in hand, trudging through the endless desolation of the aftermath, crossing one Entity’s realm to the next, Martin squeezes tighter. “Love you, you know.”

*flash*

Curled around each other, rain pattering down on the roof, Martin’s chin on the top of his head, “Jon, my love…”

*flash*

Walking out of the Archives the last time, as Jon turns away Martin wraps his scarf around Jon’s neck, “It’s cold, love.”

*flash* *flash* *flash*

Martin leaves a cup of tea on his desk, a cup of tea on the table beside his cot, a cup of tea at his elbow and with each cup the steam that rises whispers ‘love’...

_Waiting for you, Martin. I’m waiting…._

… Jon waits


End file.
